Search This Blog

Pages

Happy New Year!

I'm hoping to get more into the swing of things here on the blog in the new year. My first step is to spend some time cleaning up the blog itself: updating the My Reviews tab, creating a Books Read in 2013 tab, cleaning up the links in the right column. I need to look and see when the next Bloggiesta is coming up!!

I'm also starting to make some plans for the new year, so I figured I'd share them. Perhaps that will help me to actually stick to them!

1. Read more children's books
First off, I plan to focus more on children's books this year. As my regular readers know, my son is participating in a Battle of the Books at his school, and I'd really like to read all of the books he's reading for that. So I'll be focusing on those books during this month and next.

I also may use this goal of reading more children's books to finally get to the Harry Potter series this year. We'll see if that happens. The size of the books is daunting!

2. Read more from authors I've enjoyed
I'm starting the year reading The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. I've only read her one novel, The Secret Life of Bees before. I'm excited to read another by her. I have The Mermaid Chair on my shelf, so I plan to read that one this year as well.

There are many other authors that I'd like to read again, so I'll be focusing on that this year. Anyone know of a 2014 challenge that focuses on this?

3. Catch up on best sellers
I feel like I haven't kept up with the best sellers and most popular books of the past few years. I read a lot but rarely get to the big named authors and books. So I'd like to attempt to read more of these this year, even if it means spending the money on a hardcover book or two!

4. Write reviews within a week of finishing each book
I get so behind with writing reviews. It's frustrating. So I'm going to try to write my reviews right after reading each book. This will help make it less daunting since I won't have several to do at once, and I won't have to spend a lot of time remembering what the book was about and what I thought about it!!

Those are my four main goals this year. I haven't signed up for any challenges yet, but do plan to sign up for one or two, as long as they fit with my goals.

Here's a list of specific books I plan to read this year:

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (review)
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Defending Jacob by William Landay
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Free by Willy Vlautin (review)
Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith (book club - Jan)
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalb (book club - Feb)
Harry Potter series???

Plus the Battle of the Books selections:
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
Greetings From Nowhere by Barbara O”Connor
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Savvy by Ingrid Law
The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo
Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George
Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen
Zora and Me by Victoria Brand

Comments

Sounds like some great plans for the new year, Julie! I'll let you know if I see any challenges related to reading favorite authors. I plan to sign up for new challenges this week, too. I'm getting a late start on the new year because we had a snow day last week, so my family was home instead of at work/school.

You have some great books on your want-to-read list here! I really loved Ready Player One and Monsters of Men and can't wait to read The End of Your Life Bookclub.

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This is the end of Banned Books Week and unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to write about banned books this year. But I did want to include at least one post about it, so today I wanted to share one of the book series that it seems most people are surprised to find on the list: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park.

According to Wikipedia:
The Junie B. Jones series came in at #71 on the American Library Association's list of the Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books from 2000-2009. Reasons cited are poor social values taught by the books and Junie B. Jones not being considered a good role model due to her mouthiness and bad spelling/grammar.
This is an interesting example of a banned book. Many times there are serious, controversial topics featured in books that are challenged. Things like homosexuality, drugs, vulgar language, etc. You can actually understand why people may not want their children to read those books, and why they may challenge their inclusion in school libra…

Have you ever felt like someone was watching you? You will after reading Clare Mackintosh's latest release I See You. Told from the perspectives of two women, one who appears to be targeted by a criminal and the other who is the police officer working the case, this psychological thriller will have you looking over your own shoulder by the end.

Zoe is a typical working mother who takes the Underground through London to her office every day. Like most commuters, she has a routine that she follows every day, leaving home at the same time, sitting in the same train car, taking the same route to work from the station. It's habit. But she starts to realize this may not be a good idea after seeing her own photo in an advertisement in the newspaper. Another woman who appears in the advertisement is murdered and Zoe starts to ge…

Tessa Lowell left Fayette, Pennsylvania, when she was just 9 years old, moving to Florida with her grandmother. Now she's a recent high school graduate and heading back to town to say goodbye to her dying father. With no family in town anymore, Tessa stays with the family of her former friend Callie, which is pretty awkward since she and Callie haven't spoken since they were little. Being with Callie also brings up questions that Tessa has held onto for the years since she's been gone. Questions about the testimony the young girls gave that sent a man to death row.

I don't read many young adult novels, but The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas was touted as "the next twisted psychological thriller," so I decided to give it a try... and I'm glad I did. While the story moves r…